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5 FACTS: Beto O'Rourke

Here are five things to know about Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke.

(Published Tuesday, July 9, 2019)

When presidential candidates travel by bus, it's usually their own campaign bus, decked out with their name or campaign imagery.

Not for Beto O'Rourke's trip to Boston Thursday — he took a Bolt bus.

The former congressman from Texas running for the Democratic presidential nomination tweeted a photo of himself waiting in line for a bus in Manhattan with about a dozen other people, tagging his location as the Bolt bus stop on 36th Street.

He even made good time, according to a follow-up tweet he sent from New Haven.

O'Rourke arrived to Boston for a town hall at Tufts University, where he touched on the deadly shooting in his hometown of El Paso, the president's immigration rhetoric, data privacy and more, and a meet-and-greet with students at a bar in Roxbury. It's the first trip to Massachusetts of his campaign, his campaign said when announcing the events.

Afterward, O'Rourke will be heading to New Hampshire for the state's Democratic party convention this weekend, where he and many other candidates are slated to speak.

Why was O'Rourke traveling by bus? NBC10 Boston has reached out to his campaign for an answer.

Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel tweeted that a member of the campaign told him it's because the bus pollutes less than a plane and takes about the same amount of time, given travel to the airport and security.

He rose to national prominence for a prior interstate journey, a 2017 crosscountry trip with his then-colleague across the aisle in Congress, Rep. Will Hurd, when a snowstorm canceled flights to D.C. The pair traded driving duties from Texas and kept their followers updated along the way.